I never did understand why my English was so bad, whether was my fault, or the English I had in high school.
I thought I got by in high school, they never told me that my English was so inferior, but it was not good enough for college. It was terrible having to attend special classes.
At college, the hardest thing was not loneliness, but school work itself.
I had a roommate from Brighton, one of the three reservations, so I had someone to talk to.
The landlady was awfully suspicious at first. We were Indians, you know.
She would go through our apartment, and if we hadn't done the dishes, she washed them.
We didn't like that, but then she learned to trust us.
College was so fast for me. Everyone knew so much more.
It was as though I had never been to school before.
As soon as I got home, I started studying.
I read assignments both before and after the lectures.
I read them before so I could understand what the professor was saying, and I read them again afterwards because he talked so fast.
I was never sure I understood.
In college they dressed differently from high school, and I didn't know anything about that. I learned how to dress.
For the first six weeks, though, I never went anywhere. I stayed home and studied.
It was hard, real hard. I can imagine what a real university would be like. And it was so different.
If you didn't turn in your work, that was just your tough luck.
No one kept at me the way they did in high school, they didn't say, OK, I'll give your another week.
Gradually, I started making friends, I guess some of them thought I was different.
One boy asked me what part of India I was from. He didn't even know there were Indians in Florida. I said, I am an American.
Things like that are kind of hard.
I couldn't see my family often, but in a way that was helpful because I had to learn to adjust to my new environment.
Nobody could help me but myself.